I'm a geek (Day of History)

[Russell Nash]

There are a couple of things I'm geeky about.  Maybe compulsive is a better word.  I don't know.

NPR had this story about an archived day of radio from 1939.

Now, back to earlier days in media. In 1939, the National Archives did something it had never done before. It recorded, for posterity, an entire day of radio from sign on to sign off, just as listeners heard it at home. The station they chose was WJSV in Washington, D.C., and the date, September 21st, 70 years ago today. We're assuming you do not have 18 hours to listen to the entire broadcast, so independent producer Ben Shapiro has this distillation of one day of radio and life in the shadow of the Second World War.

I found the clips to be totally fascinating.  Here's the compulsive part.  The entire recording is available at Archive.org.  I will be listening to this over the next few days. 

[Sgarre1]

Believe it or not, I actually own this on cassette/s (bought it back in th early 90's).  It is fascinating.  I do wonder about the way they phrase that, though ("the National Archives did something it had never done before") because IIRC, the existence of the recordings was actually the result of an accident - someone was told to record an important presidential speech later in the day and instead they recorded most of the whole day.

Still, a fascinating document.  I'll have to dig that out...

[Russell Nash]

The announcer says something like, "I feel I'm being recorded for posterity."  That's not the way he said it but that was the attitude.  There was no mention in the NPR story about a speech by the president and by eight in the morning he hadn't mentioned it. 

The ads and the news stories are interesting.  They're talking about rumors the Germans might go through Belgium because of the Maginot line.

[deflective]

npr also has the playback podcast, a monthly recap of their radio shows from twentyfive years ago.

quality varies, it depends what happened this month in 1984, but there's usually something worth listening to.

[Russell Nash]

npr also has the playback podcast, a monthly recap of their radio shows from twentyfive years ago.

quality varies, it depends what happened this month in 1984, but there's usually something worth listening to.

I've been subscribed to that since the beginning.  I love listening to how the announcers have changed.

[Sgarre1]

Maybe the recording I'm thinking of is earlier than this (although, qualifier, it may not have been a "Presidential" speech, possibly a Congressional one?).  Does it start with morning music (something like "Breakfast Serenade") and eventually include coverage of a baseball game (I'm not in a position to listen to the NPR link and my casette binder - it was something like 12/18 tapes - have been packed away for years)?

EDIT - okay, it sounds like same thing:

"From Thursday, September 21, 1939.  President Franklin Roosevelt gave a speech to Congress this day, and station WJSV, 1460 AM in Washington, DC decided to preserve the entire day's broadcast, from sign-on at 6 a.m. to sign-off at 1:00 a.m. the following morning, to commemorate it.  To see a complete, hour-by-hour program schedule"

Roosevelt gave his speech at 2:00 in the afternoon and the baseball game is at about 11:30 am.  Funny, NPR says the National Archive ordered the recording, this capsule says WJSV decided to do it, and the story, as I heard it in the late 80's, was that it was a happy accident involving an order to record the speech, a new employee and a stack of transcription discs (he assumed they did this every day, whereas transcription discs were generally too pricey for that).

[Russell Nash]

The announcer has mentioned it a least twice.  He knew it was going on and that it was not normal.

The original WJSV was a Washington, D.C. radio station, owned by CBS. Among the more famous events involving WJSV was the recording of its entire broadcast day on September 21, 1939. The recording includes many famous radio programs of the time (including Amos 'n Andy and Major Bowes' Original Amateur Hour), local programs featuring Arthur Godfrey and John Charles Daly before their national successes, a Cleveland Indians-Washington Senators baseball game, and a speech by President Franklin Roosevelt. The recording was saved in the National Archives and still exists today; many old time radio websites have excerpts of the WJSV broadcast day and offer copies for sale. A sampling of the material broadcast that day was featured on the 70th anniversary of the event on National Public Radio's All Things Considered of September 21, 2009.

Doesn't help us figure out why it was done, but gives a little rundown of what was on.

[Planish]

The thing I like about old radio news archives is that to us it is history. We know what happens in the long run. They had no idea.

F'rinstance, the first news that the civilians of the Allied countries had that something big was happening on D-Day was from German broadcasts. It was hours before the Allies confirmed it. In the meantime, they had to keep saying words to the effect of "don't fall for that old trick" for fear that resistance groups would break their cover prematurely.

[Heradel]

The thing I like about old radio news archives is that to us it is history. We know what happens in the long run. They had no idea.

F'rinstance, the first news that the civilians of the Allied countries had that something big was happening on D-Day was from German broadcasts. It was hours before the Allies confirmed it. In the meantime, they had to keep saying words to the effect of "don't fall for that old trick" for fear that resistance groups would break their cover prematurely.

It would be interesting to see how the news of something like that would get out now. Odds unfortunately (due to the high signal:noise ratio) are that Twitter would lead the pack, but determining veracity in that setting is difficult, and any event of that magnitude would probably bring down parts of the internet from unintentional DDOS if a coordinated attack on internet infrastructure wasn't part of whatever happened. Twitter would be probably enough for the cable nets to pick it up, and from there it would go to print media orgs and the blogosphere.

Which wouldn't be a bad thing, except that it already creates an echo chamber. I think the future's problem will be establishing reality from astroturf.

[Russell Nash]

It would be interesting to see how the news of something like that would get out now. Odds unfortunately (due to the high signal:noise ratio) are that Twitter would lead the pack, but determining veracity in that setting is difficult, and any event of that magnitude would probably bring down parts of the internet from unintentional DDOS if a coordinated attack on internet infrastructure wasn't part of whatever happened. Twitter would be probably enough for the cable nets to pick it up, and from there it would go to print media orgs and the blogosphere.

Which wouldn't be a bad thing, except that it already creates an echo chamber. I think the future's problem will be establishing reality from astroturf.

That's one of the things that came to mind as I started listening to the news in this broadcast day.  The guy kept saying, "these are only reports.  Nothing has been confirmed."  He said it about 8 times in five minutes.  I just don't think these cable news guys would be that careful.

[davedoty]

It would be interesting to see how the news of something like that would get out now.

9-11?  There have certainly been changes to the net in the last 8 years, but there was definitely a solid net society in place.

[Heradel]

It would be interesting to see how the news of something like that would get out now.

9-11?  There have certainly been changes to the net in the last 8 years, but there was definitely a solid net society in place.

Yes, but not a real-time one. Social networks existed in a nascent form, nothing like they do today.

[Talia]

On a semi-kinda-related note, Decoder Ring Theater kicked off their fall season with a new episode of the Red Panda Adventures that (minor spoilers follow)




includes actual audio clippings from radio reports on the Hindenburg Disaster. It's powerful stuff, in fact it overshadows the story somewhat. Highly recommended. Incidentally if anyone has a better way to block spoilery stuff than turning text white clue me in!

[Sgarre1]

Incidentally if anyone has a better way to block spoilery stuff than turning text white clue me in!

Check out the HALLOWEEN thread for nifty tips on spoilery hiding.

I grew up in Toms River, NJ, 15 minutes from Lakehurst Naval Air Station, where the Hindenburg ("oh, the humanity!") went down, so I've always been fascinated by zeppelins and airship disasters.  If you want equally horrifying (for people with a fear of heights, as opposed to being burned alive) do some reading on the USS Shenandoah disaster.